Hemidrachm

Chersonesos, the Thracian peninsula city, produced these hemidrachms in enormous quantities throughout the fourth century BC, likely to facilitate trade across the northern Aegean and Black Sea routes where Athenian coinage didn't dominate. The sheer volume minted — and the consistency of the type across generations — suggests a mercantile rather than civic imperative. Philip II of Macedon absorbed the region by 338 BC, the closing date of this issue's production.

The McClean specimen reference points to the collection assembled by Frank McClean and bequeathed to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1904, still one of the more useful cataloguing resources for this prolific type.